Who are the people in my neighborhood? (Comments: 1)

One of the best parts of riding my bike is meeting cool people. I’m not a cool guy. I don’t look hip or act hip. I use words like “hip.” I don’t drink, I’m not much of a partier, and I sometimes wear a bowtie to work.

But I ride an Xtracycle with neon lights. And that makes up for a lot.

Whenever I ride around, I end up having at least one — and usually more than one — conversation about cycling. It often starts with the Xtracycle. People ask the “What is it?” question a lot. After reading something somewhere (maybe the Roots Radicals listserv?), I’ve started saying it’s a “bicycle pick-up truck.” That works surprisingly well. In some cases, we chat about the X for a few minutes and that’s it. More often, though, we end up talking about cycling. The other person’s experiences, cycling in Albany, etc.

Yesterday I was downtown for the Common Council meeting. On the way, I stopped in at the library. When I came out to unlock my bike, a guy in a BMW convertible pulled up next to the bike rack. He was probably in his late 60s. I’m not proud of this, but I’ll admit that my instant reaction was negative. Expensive car, older white guy, probably a banker or some kind of businessman who thinks I’m a hippy freak.

Then he walked over and asked me about the Xtracycle. I gave him the pitch, and he started telling me about his Fuji. “I don’t put as many miles on it as I used to,” he said. “I used to ride 1,000 miles a summer, now I ride maybe 200.” Turns out his name is Jerry, and he’s a cyclist. And I’m a jerk.

This morning, I was at the Down Tube cycle shop on Madison to finish my disc brake installation. There was a guy outside the shop waiting for it to open. He was riding a mountain bike, decked out in a leather jacket with an iPhone attached to his stem with — as it later turned out — Velcro. I had the bags and V-racks off the Packet Boat, which makes it look like a very badass chopper bike, if you don’t mind my saying so. He took off his headphones and complimented me on my bike. We started chatting. His name is Crews, and he runs Crews Hair 360, near one of the El Mariachi locations. We had a great talk about biking and bikes, and agreed to hook up again in the future.

Neither of those interactions would have happened in my car. So in addition to the health benefits and environmental benefits and blah blah blah, I really appreciate the social benefits.

Cycling: It’s Hip!

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